Request By:
Honorable Pat Abell
Legal Assistant
Office of the Governor
Capitol Building
Frankfort, Kentucky
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your memorandum of March 7 in which you request an opinion concerning the following:
"The General Assembly will adjourn on Saturday, March 18, 1978. Section 88 of the Constitution gives the Governor ten days after adjournment, excluding Sundays, to return Legislation before it automatically becomes law. Section 88 also seems to say that any bill passed by both houses during the last ten days may also be vetoed at any time before the ten day post-adjournment period has run.
"Please issue an opinion as to when the ten day period will run, and to what legislation passed by the General Assembly the ten day period applies."
In response to your question we refer to § 88 of the Constitution, which reads in part as follows:
". . . If any bill shall not be returned by the Governor within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, it shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the General Assembly, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall be a law, unless disapproved by him within ten days after the adjournment, . . ." (Emphasis added).
The answer to your question is found in the case of
Watkins v. Waterfield, Ky., 297 S.W.2d 761 (1956), which held that under § 88 of the Constitution the Governor is entitled to ten (10) full days after the day of adjournment, excluding Sundays, to review legislation submitted to him. Since the legislature will adjourn on March 18, that day is of course excluded. The following Sunday, the 19th, is also to be excluded as well as Sunday, the 26th. As a consequence, the first day of the 10-day period would begin on March 20 excluding the 26th [Sunday], and the period would extend through March 30, which would be the tenth day.
Thus, the Governor would have until 12:00 o'clock midnight of March 30 to act on legislation presented to him within the last ten (10) days (excluding Sundays) of the Session.